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Monday, March 28, 2016

“I Will Be Your Witness” (Acts 10:34-43)

Well, we all know why we are gathered
here this morning.We all know the
stories of the various encounters . . . the women discovering the empty tomb .
. . the appearance with the disciples in an isolated and locked room . . . the
encounter along the road . . . and, the revelation as he broke the bread at the
fireside.Jesus is alive.Jesus is not dead.And, we are here this morning to celebrate
this victory over death and all that it means for us as the followers of
Jesus.It is Easter!

With that being the case, then why in
the world did the pastor read a scripture passage that had absolutely nothing
to do with the stories of Easter that all of us are so familiar with?Why are we hearing about some encounter that
Peter has at the home of some Gentile—actually a Roman centurion?Why aren’t we dancing in the aisles, shouting
“hosannas”, and getting down with the Easter story we all know and love?

I’ll tell you.

One of the reasons why is because I do
not want someone coming up to me after the worship service and saying to be me,
“You know, Pastor, every year you preach the same thing.”And, true, every year pastors and preachers
everywhere preach the same thing when it comes to Easter . . . same with
Christmas.It is a familiar story we all
know and love . . . it is the crux of our faith; and, we never get tired of
it.But, the story does not end
there.The story does not end with the
resurrection of Jesus.No, the story is
just beginning.

One of the ministries . . . or jobs .
. . of being a pastor is officiating at funerals.Over the thirty-some years that I have been a
pastor I have officiated at hundreds of funerals.I have stood before countless people who have
gathered to celebrate and remember a loved one.Together we have lifted up the deceased individual and remembered
them.It is a part of the job of being a
minister, and one that I enjoy doing; but, one funeral many years ago, a
thought passed through my mind.It was a
simple thought, and one that probably every minister has thought at least once
in his or her ministry, but it is one that has stuck in the back reaches of my
mind over the years.Every so often it
pops its head up, nudges me, and makes me wonder.

What is that thought?Well, as the individual who does all the
burying . . . all of the officiating over the funerals . . . I wondered, who is
going to officiate over my funeral when that day comes?

One of my favorite Appalachian or
bluegrass songs, often credited to the Stanley brothers, is Who Will Sing for Me. The singer apparently is the individual who
sings at all the community funerals.Someone dies; this is the guy who is singing at the funeral.One day it dawns on the singer, if I die who
will sing at my funeral?The lyrics are:

Oft I
sing for my friends

When
death's cold hand I see

When I
reach my journey's end

Who
will sing one song for me

I
wonder (I wonder) who

Will
sing (will sing) for me

When
I'm called to cross that silent sea

Who
will sing for me

When
friends shall gather round

And
look down on me

Will
they turn and walk away

Or will
they sing one song for me

The truth is, if I die, someone will
officiate at my funeral.The underlying
question or concern is actually a little deeper than that . . . a little more
profound . . . maybe even a little selfish.That underlying question has to do with something I think we all wander
into at various points in our lives, and that is: will anyone remember me?

In the movie Shall We Dance, Richard Gere plays a bored, overworked lawyer who
one night on the commuter train sees out the window a beautiful dance instructor
teaching a dancing class.Enchanted with
the beauty he decides that he wants to meet this woman, so he signs up for
dance lessons.Unfortunately, the dance
classes he signs up for are not the ones that this beautiful instructor is
teaching; no, he ends up with the older and plainer owner of the dance
studio.Instead of falling in love with
the beautiful instructor, he falls in love with dancing.

In the meantime, his wife, played by
Susan Sarandon, is bewildered with what is going on.She knows that their relationship seems to be
waning and that he comes home later and later from work.She assumes the worse, but she loves him . .
. she trusts him.She is in the marriage
through thick and thin.

One evening she is talking to a friend
about the importance of marriage . . . about her commitment to marriage and to
her husband.She says:“We need a witness to our lives. There's a
billion people on the planet... I mean, what does any one life really mean? But
in a marriage, you're promising to care about everything. The good things, the
bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things... all of it, all of the
time, every day. You're saying 'Your life will not go unnoticed because I will
notice it. Your life will not go un-witnessed because I will be your
witness'."

Pretty powerful statement.One I often share with couples before they
get married.In those words is the
promise . . . you will not be forgotten.“Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.Your life will not go unwitnessed because I
will be your witness.”You will be
remembered.

Peter states: “We are witnesses of everything
he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem.”Peter and all the disciples . . . all
those who followed Jesus . . . were witnesses to everything that had
happened.They were there to hear the
stories, listen to the teaching and preaching . . . to see the miracles.They were there from the beginning . . . they
were witnesses to it all.Because they
were witnesses the life of Jesus . . . the ministry of Jesus . . . the purpose
of Jesus . . . will not go unnoticed or unwitnessed because they will be his
witness.They will tell the
stories.They will keep him
remembered.They will keep him alive.

The story we heard this morning in our
scripture reading takes place well after the encounters of the risen Jesus . .
. by now he has ascended into heaven.The story we hear takes place after that fateful day in Jerusalem in
which the Spirit is delivered and flows through the people . . . the day of
Pentecost.Life is slowly getting back
to normal, but the faithful continue to gather, tell the stories, and keep the
mission alive . . . to keep Jesus alive.Among them is Peter.Peter who is
the more-or-less leader of this faithful group . . . who receives an invitation
to the home of a Roman centurion who is curious about Jesus and his purpose.

So, Peter goes.Along the way he has vision of food . . .
yeah, food.Food that Jewish people are
not allowed to eat.In the vision God
tells him that food doesn’t determine faith and who is saved.Thus he enters into the Roman centurion’s
home with a new understanding . . . that the message of God is for everyone . .
. God accepts everyone.This is exactly
what he tells those who are gathered in the centurion’s house . . . that this
love and grace, this gift, is for everyone.Then he tells the story . . . he tells the story of Jesus.He is a witness.

“He was not seen by all the people, but by
witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he
rose from the dead.He commanded us to
preach to the people and to testify that he is the one who God appointed as
judge of the living and the dead.All
the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives
forgiveness of sins through his name.”

Peter is a witness.He is a witness to the Easter story.He is a witness to Jesus.Nothing will be forgotten . . . nothing will
go unwitnessed.

Thus it is for us . . . the followers
of Jesus.We are called upon to be
witness of the love and grace of Jesus . . . the love and grace of God . . .
through the story of Jesus . . . through the power of Easter.Yes, as we gather this morning to celebrate
and remember, we are called out from our celebrating to be witnesses to the
greatest story ever told . . . we are called to share the “Good News”.Easter is not a stagnant story . . . once
told and never shared.

No, we are here this morning because
someone, somewhere, shared the story . . . someone witnessed.And, if the body of Christ is to survive and
thrive into the future, we must become witnesses of the story of Jesus in our
lives . . . we must share it with other.We must tell the story.That is
the hope that carries us through each day into the future . . . ever closer to
the Kingdom of God.We must be
witnesses.

Now, I assure you that when I die
someone will officiate at my funeral. Yet, none of us ever want to be
forgotten.That singer who worried about
who would sing at his funeral . . . well, he had hope.He had hope that someone would sing for him
when he died.The last verse of the song
goes:

So I'll
sing til the end

Contented
I will be

Assured
that some friends

Will
sing one song for me

On this Easter Sunday we celebrate a
living Christ . . . he lives!He lives
with us and in us . . . in relationship with us.Each of our stories of the encountered Jesus
are powerful stories . . . stories of faith, stories of love, and stories of grace.We stand as witnesses to the story.It is up to us to share those stories.Up to us to proclaim to Jesus: “Your life
will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go
un-witnessed because I will be your witness.”

We are called to be witnesses on this
Easter Sunday.That is why we are not
hearing the familiar stories of Easter . . . we know them.The time has come to share them.The time has come to step up and be
witnesses.Amen.